In The New World, FTEs (Full-Time Employees) Will Become APIs. Much has been made about how the dropping cost of website infrastructure has spurred a boom in startup formation, with Amazon Web Services held up as the prime example. The capital cost of servers has been eliminated, but even more important is the plummeting human cost. (<< Netflix has no own data center) [...] Companies and products like Heroku, Celery, RabbitMQ, Mandrill, Fastly, Chartio, Chargebee, Shipwire, Docker, Codeship, Rainforest QA, Replicated and Chartbeat have changed the nature of tech development. [...] Sure, there is a shortage of talent today, but developers are rapidly finding ways to put future developers out of jobs.

hollowing out // automation - vs - skill & problem solving (figuring out how to automate/put something together/create new) - vs - end of the chain work (low end, manual, repetitive, service...) // within the next 20 years, 47% of jobs in developed world could be replaced by robots/automation/machines // Future of Work is about problem solving, not putting (end of the chain) things together. figuring out the new, making the new, making something better, more efficient, faster, better quality, ... // and as it stands now, those who reap the rewards will be few. and gov policy, ie tax evasion, tax avoidance, tax code, fairness, --- gains have to be shared.

It’s best encapsulated in a famous Jeff Bezos quote, “You can work long, hard or smart, but at Amazon.com you can’t choose two out of three,” [...] Try working at Goldman Sachs, [...] You think it’s different at any of the top consulting firms? [...] You see organizations like these thrive on large pools of some of the country’s best and brightest graduates that trade off 2-5 years of work experience under extreme pressure in exchange for skills, experiences & relationships that will last a lifetime. [Accelerated Learning] [...] Think its a cake walk working @ any of the countries top law firms? [...] Should we do an article on what it’s like to be a medical resident? How abt working in the US military? Chief of Staff for a major political figure? What abt a top athlete in the NFL or NBA or even part of the coaching staff. Think they dont have work/life balance challenges in a field theyve chosen to work in? [#Top 100 of X vs avg white- or blue-collar worker ] [what u optimize for?]

Amazon a cyber-sweatshop? SARAH LACY praised the New York Times reporting on Amazon: "When you freak out the tech world, you're a powerful news organization." // "brutally efficient" 'white and blue collar jobs being exposed to the same treatment manual work and service sector jobs have been treated by competition and globalisation (flat and borderless world), for the last +30 years. "it's what you don't say and how it gets interpreted down the line." // Investigative Journalism! NYT (paper), a institution, a stalwart of investigative journalism, reporting, holding companies and people accountable, .... same along the line of bit.ly/1NRsG5N - One overlooked theme emerging from the Times’s Amazon story is the power of the paper itself. // this story underlines, is a data point in time, you can look back on. and say the world went this way such and such // competing on price is the easiest thing to do! the first thing in reach! its about the hard things that actually leverage/multiplier

“You either fit here or you don’t,” and that in Seattle the company has a widespread reputation for its toughness. For now, you have a choice whether to work for Amazon. For now, you have options. Amazon is the vanguard of a very scary movement in the tech sector but we’re not all there yet (though some techbros on Twitter seem happy at the thought of Amazon culture catching on). [...] Why do we care suddenly about working conditions when it turns out that white-collar employees are the ones getting shafted? The workers at Amazon fulfillment centers have much less choice and much less power than the marketers and engineers in the Times piece. [...] We’re acting shocked and horrified that Amazon applies what it calls “purposeful Darwinism” to people with MBAs and PhDs, // [ trend, conditions known in service sector job and manual labour sector swapping over into the cushy world of blue-/white-collar worker ] Capitalism regresses toward feudalism.

via - http://redd.it/3ge85e // In recent years, some countries have tried to copy elements of German capitalism. With youth unemployment near 50%, Spain is looking to boost German-style apprenticeship programs. France is experimenting with measures that allow unionized companies to cut working hours and preserve jobs during downturns. Britain wants to build a Mittelstand of its own. So far, none have transformed these economies. And they likely won’t. German policies function well because they are designed to work in the context of the German economy, where institutions like trade unions and industry associations have proven uniquely effective at coordinating wages and production over time. “That structure is built up over decades if not centuries,” says Hall, of Harvard. “So countries can’t immediately emulate it.” [...] To be sure, the German system isn’t perfect.

- shown hurting growth. US growth is dependent on consumer spending. stupid. hacking off the only leg one has is not smart. // established economic truth ! Paul Krugman: Inequality Actually Bad for Growth - youtu.be/cRMi8_M681U &! Paul Krugman & Tony Atkinson in Conversation | Inequality and Economic Growth - youtu.be/3l6E3mUNW70 &! &! What's Really Driving Income Inequality: Orszag - youtu.be/XJ_raBX7oq8 ( only added value jobs STEM - pays for work and shows wage growth, not so in service sector jobs. UK recovery showed it; lots of service sector job creation than any other type of job + Lohnzurueckhalting (no leverage to demand higher wage than just minimum wage or little above bc outside the door waits the one who will replace you) = no wage growth in the first couple of years of recovery and no productivity growth and persistent output gap (below potential) )

Research from the Institute for Policy Studies found that in 2014, bonuses paid to Wall Street employees had been double the total annual pay earned by all Americans who worked full-time at the federal minimum wage. I crunched the numbers and it turned out that the same was true for the UK. [...] The Office for National Statistics (ONS) had figures out on Wednesday based on the definition that people were in poverty if their income was below 60% of the median level (to find the median income, line up all the people in the country in order of income and take the middle one). It found that almost a third of the UK population had experienced poverty in at least one of the years between 2010 and 2013, which is very high by European standards. The OECD sets out a summary of what has happened to examples of all three of these measures. Across its 34 member countries, the Gini Coefficient rose gradually from 1996, fell slightly for the financial crisis and then resumed its upward path.

No Representation; personal & corporate tax avoidance/evasion (criminal behaviour) & non-dom, as well as progressive tax code (just lowered last term to 45% for 150k.) Instead should be 50% as it was. As well as introducing a 55%/60% for 500k/1m. // &! UK living standards fell for all but the richest under coalition – analysis - bit.ly/1Rc2PZg // &! bit.ly/1JU55Cm "when it comes to cuts there is no longer any “low-hanging fruit”. What’s left are in large part harsh cuts hitting middle-income working families" [...] Cameron spoke this morning of a “one nation” Toryism but he will know his £12bn of cuts will disproportionately hit the poor, young sick and​ disabled. The cuts will deliver more pain, fear and instability to those they affect. [...] seriously dismantling the welfare state [Cameron and Tories] will know this carries a political cost. // &! bit.ly/1PwOhQg bit.ly/1GaA37k bit.ly/1Ij67FZ bit.ly/1FJecDL bit.ly/1IAKanv

[The 2nd Industrial Revolution enabled by Moore's Law from 2000-2030/50: autonomous cars, software eats the world, marketplaces, share economy, automation, robotics, AI/augmented reality, local - just in time manufacturing via 3D printing, renewable energy and 100% recycling of everything.] The transition is already beginning to happen. Elon Musk, Tesla Motor’s CEO, says that their 2015 models will be able to self-drive 90 percent of the time.1 And the major automakers aren’t far behind – according to Bloomberg News, GM’s 2017 models will feature “technology that takes control of steering, acceleration and braking at highway speeds of 70 miles per hour or in stop-and-go congested traffic.”2 Both Google3 and Tesla4 predict that fully-autonomous cars – what Musk describes as “true autonomous driving where you could literally get in the car, go to sleep and wake up at your destination” – will be available to the public by 2020. (( via bit.ly/1DAKDDN ))

>> how many jobs have been lost regarding to banking in london and adjoining businesses ... thousands. thousands of hours of productivity gone (high charges for the hours). forever. = productivity and output gap || and how many times had osborne now moved forward expected savings and targets in time ... every year. || it will not get better as they travel (still) on the same path that leads to nowhere safe. still heading to the cliff. same direction. same speed.

Hence, the superstar of the modern age is not the person with the best degree, but rather the person who acquires the most new skills with the greatest alacrity, and the person with the most adaptable skillset. [...] (Moody's has already downgraded the outlook of the entire US higher education industry). But most importantly, the most valuable knowledge will become increasingly self-taught from content available to all, and the entire economy will begin the process of adjusting to this new reality. // Book: The Start-up of You - Reid Hoffman.

59m7s >> what if we erase the digital divide ... transforming the pyramid into a conical spike because of winner takes all network effects. .... >> ~30hr work week - Robert Skidelsky, ... contribution to the collective worth society, unpaid. - unconditional living wage/income ... a basic income redistribution. fairness. people that work in low to non-profit companies because of added value to society ... paid by excess profits of X ... we are all in the same boat. we are all interconnected. dependent on each other. +++ http://youtu.be/pDVDWNguPs4?t=1h5m20s // doing more with fewer staff. & practical skills you need in today's workplace, u don't learn at university. Elon Musk, the most important men 4 the future. bc he's swinging big, willing to fail with his ambition(s). attracts similar minds. [down the line come's Bill Gates 2.0, Larry & Sergey, & others that work on sustainability of food and energy.] ADD Larry Page on that topic - http://on.recode.net/1qZC7oZ // vid id Wdnp_7atZ0M

interesting point about deflationary pressures ... ... min 59 - re-training of workforce - for the workplaces of the future. // min 1:00:00 social divide between the havs and the havs not. // education has to marry (50/50) liberal arts and practical skill sets for the future. mandatory will have to be technology basics and programming intro.

min 17 in - about not having a better future for our kids. the thing is, the lowest hanging fruits have been eaten. now there only the hard things left to to, hard because they seem so remote from here, hard because they are worthwhile pursuing despite setbacks. renewable energy, curing diseases, sustainability in lots of quadrants - energy, food & water, environment, democracy & more or less striving for equality - social and income mobility. End: >> Luck, that could be me, empathy, leadership, ...

moral hero, grit and grain: book "a struggle for power." many minutes in 'working class adopting capitalism without it's cruelties.' corporations, politicians, there got to be transparency & accountability. avoiding ecological, environmental & economic disaster, exploitation, secrecy, misery @ the workplace & parasitic behaviour (leeching out the life of the host, the planet, till death). end of video; debate, debating, speech, rhetoric and flair; tip - improv. Socratic method; process of elimination, eliminating all questions a good means of ordering the mind. Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011 BBC tribute http://youtu.be/TsUSb13m5VY < Religion "ur created sick & commanded to be well," and talking about Cancer. + It is unbelievable that Religion is still a power of force and way of thinking in Political and Policy circles. // Paxman meets Hitchens - http://youtu.be/Y-s9AyNQyCw | + on ABC1 Lateline http://youtu.be/yI30VwPZm-o - see related content, other interviews during his ill health.

"... it is hard to avoid the sense of a puzzling disconnect between the markets’ buoyancy and underlying economic developments globally.... Despite the euphoria in financial markets, investment remains weak. Instead of adding to productive capacity, large firms prefer to buy back shares or engage in mergers and acquisitions. As history reminds us, there is little appetite for taking the long-term view. Few are ready to curb financial booms that make everyone feel illusively richer. Or to hold back on quick fixes for output slowdowns, even if such measures threaten to add fuel to unsustainable financial booms. Or to address balance sheet problems head-on during a bust when seemingly easier policies are on offer. The temptation to go for shortcuts is simply too strong, even if these shortcuts lead nowhere in the end. [...] " Never before have central banks tried to push so hard."

+++ http://youtu.be/lKDcbFGct8A?t=1h38m6s - Books Thesis: "The Fundamental thing is; everybody should ask themselves, in their work and career, how and what intelligent risks you can take to have outstanding, breakout results."

The UK's education system is failing to produce enough people with foreign-language skills to meet a growing need from business, the CBI has said. Nearly two-thirds of about 300 UK firms surveyed by the business lobby group said they preferred staff with these skills. French, German and Spanish were highly prized but Arabic and Mandarin were growing in importance, it said.

Martin Weale said there may be more spare capacity in the economy than policymakers had previously estimated. +++ Bank of England 'puzzled' by productivity gap - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27857472 >> London Finance Centre Canary Wharf drove up productivity in the run up to the 2008 GFC :: UK workforce as a whole, lacking skills for the future, thus the productivity gap; Mobile Creative, Mobile Creatives, skill-biased technological change, knowledge worker, White-collar Worker, Blue-collar Worker. Year of Code is too late and a drop/tea-cup in the ocean. College needs to offer Computer Science Degrees (Technichal College), not just University. College's offers courses as "Beauty Technicians." Services Industry that does NOT scale. A locals hairdressers service can not be exported, sold and consumed in other countries. Period.

The faster the mechanisation process, the more likely we are to see productivity – the amount of output each worker generates – starting to grow again and, with it, wages. A greater use of artificial intelligence throughout the economy will benefit, not hurt, the overall workforce. There are just two, crucial, caveats: it will be vital to help individuals displaced by the new technologies to find work in new areas. Better education and training will become even more vital. We also need policies to ensure that the UK, already a leading player in high value-added industries, continues to develop in these areas; this means making sure that Britain remains an open economy, that taxes are kept low, that higher education is allowed to thrive free of the dead hand of the state, and that infrastructure, including airport links, is up to scratch.

There were 115,000 UK housing completions in 2013, almost a record peacetime low, compared with the 240,000 new homes needed each year just to meet the rise in household numbers hard-wired into our demography. This disgraceful shortage, and the government’s now long-past-its-sell-by-date Help-to-Buy scheme, is the reason prices are up 9.1pc across the UK over the last year and 17.1pc higher in London. And where house price inflation goes, economy-wide inflation eventually follows. While agreeing with Carney’s house-building analysis, I don’t agree the Bank can’t do more to rein in a market now in danger of spiralling out of control. [...] [A] development we’ll live to regret. +++ IMF warns UK government over housing bubble risk --- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27731567 +++ PRODUCTIVITY REMAINS WEAK. << skill-biased technological change, capital skills, skill, skills, knowledge worker, White-collar Worker, Blue-collar Worker, workforce, Mobile Creative, Mobile Creatives,

policy to push to learn to write, read, understand code and systems. design thinking. problem solving. early on as soon as yound ppl are literate ~12-14. - higher productivity - + 3D printing future in 30 years ... future of 30-35hr work week - 5-6hrs a day. THE REAL NEW ECONOMY. 90's New Economy was hyped by exuberance and ... different topic. But this is the outline of the real new world, new economy. ( robert skidelsky in praise of leisure ) when the world is flat - 2050. baring any other crisis being solved ala climate change and ecological disasters. man made or ie earthquake swallowing california, canarie islands exploding creating huge tsunami, yosemite exploding, etc etc. - baring also - that we fix inequality problems, reducing the divide. fostering better democratic process, transparency and accountability - instilling trust and confidence again in public service.

who owns the economies assets, the ~1% individuals and international conglomerate corporations, - when return on these assets /y is greater than economic growth - inequality rises. it is all that happend even during the recovery after the GFC - 1% got richer, conglomerates and corporations got richer/sat on their cashpiles. while ie in USA Food Stamp handouts rose month over month _+++ http://www.democracyjournal.org/32/the-inequality-puzzle.php?page=all ""Piketty’s treatment of inequality is perfectly matched to its moment. [...] the share of income and wealth going to those at the very top—the top 1 percent, .1 percent, and .01 percent of the population—has risen sharply over the last generation, marking a return to a pattern that prevailed before World War I. There can now be no doubt that the phenomenon of inequality is not dominantly about the inadequacy of the skills of lagging workers."" --- +++ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age

Kohl made the decision for the catastrophic exchange rate and the uncreative implementation of East Germany's bankrupt and uncompetitive economy - politically (elections) and from lobby of West German Industries. ... Plus there were plans by others (Mitterand) to not integrate GDR into DDR, but into Europe and transform in into that process. But the fall of the iron curtain would have been still uncertain. .... Post-Reunification 1990 - investments were politically motivated. West Germany didn't needed, economically, East Germany. Fall of Iron Curtain - globalisation really took hold, became unstoppable; India, China, Russia, Latin America opened up its markets and joined the established western (capitalistic markets) wholly. !!! Every German company and every German employee stands to compete with the whole world. Period. And vice versa. >> Thus subsidies and favouritism and golden handshakes etc etc. The world is flat. Period. Differences are not that stark in G20 anymore.

It’s not difficult to see evidence of income disparity in San Francisco. The headquarters of Twitter, now valued at around $20 billion, looms massively over a neighborhood plagued by homelessness, drug addiction, and prostitution. Median rents continue to hit record highs, and despite the wealth that continues to pour into San Francisco thanks to the tech boom, the number of homeless individuals has remained more-or-less the same since 2005. The gap between rich and poor is widening across the country, but according to a new study, San Francisco income inequality was found to be not only above the US national average – it was even slightly worse than that of Rwanda, which is among the most unequal countries in the world. +++ See http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/not-a-tech-bro-but-not-a-tech-lady "Gender (+ Race) + Class" paragraph.

In absolute terms it has been impossible for UK debts to fall. >> Now what was a little worrying was that the deficit on the current account reached 5.6% of GDP, or economic output, in the third quarter of 2013 and fell to just a little bit lower, 5.4%, in the fourth quarter. That 5.6% was - ahem - something of a milestone: it was the biggest quarterly deficit since records began in 1955. And it explains why the record aggregate indebtedness of the UK has been falling so slowly, and is still not much below 500% of GDP on the Mckinsey measure (though see my previous blog). [...] UK's - limp trading performance - for YEARS! ... COMPETING against BRICs, Europe, G8, ... now and in the future competing with MINT countries too ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINT_countries ). [...] "We have not got forever to reconstruct our economy and become a bit more like the European export emperor, Germany."

The economy is changing in structural ways that affect not just the job market but the nature of work itself. If we ask, what is work?, the conventional answer is tasks that somebody will pay us to do. This is true, but it doesn't address why someone is willing to pay us. The answer is to create value. ... [ Skills, not Expertise. ] ...... As technology's ability to replace costly human labor moves from the factory floor to the service sector, the nature of middle class work is changing. [ IBM's company wide Pivot over +10 years from HW to Services and Software Company. With the accompanying downsizing. ] ... Jobs that can be learned in a few hours are prone to being replaced by machines. [...] The protected sectors beset by soaring costs (healthcare, higher education, major weaponry programs, finance, etc.) will undergo the creative destruction of technology-based productivity gains for the reason that they are already unaffordable, not just to households but to the nation.

0.) 4 day work week @ teamtreehouse / carsonified || 1.) lesson have time limits for projects, incremental goals to be achieved by X days. >> | | The bottom line is that productivity -- driven by technology and well-functioning markets -- drives wealth far more than hours worked. And very few jobs in developed economies nowadays are classic assembly-line positions, where working 20 percent longer will mechanically produce 20 percent more widgets. Psychology plays a role here too: At least 40 years of studies suggest that people work harder if you limit their time to complete a certain task. In some cases, working too hard can actually reduce output. Long working hours are also associated with ill health, which means lost labor in the long term, as well as higher medical costs for employers and government. + http://www.spiegel.de/karriere/ausland/schweden-goeteborg-will-sechs-stunden-arbeitstag-einfuehren-a-964791.html

[symptom of the working poor and squeezed middle class and wage stagnation || http://youtu.be/_k9q8rBfRVY + http://youtu.be/akVL7QY0S8A + http://youtu.be/nIimu0LF4JA + http://youtu.be/BOMoC0_m5pQ // Americans are moving less—and not as far—because it's not nearly as worthwhile economically. Most moves are local, from neighborhood to neighborhood in the same city or county, and are largely driven by seeking better housing or more proximity to family and friends. But long-distance moves between states are different. These interstate moves are typically driven by those seeking better job opportunities. Since the 1980s, neither the job opportunities nor the potential for better wages have made such moves worth it, according to the study. It finds that by 2013 the rate of interstate relocations had fallen 51 percent below its 1948 to 1971 average levels, the peak years for such longer-distance moves.

Worker-CEO pay ratio ~ 12x or 100X ? + http://theweek.com/article/index/260267/why-we-need-a-maximum-wage "Nearly everyone writing on the subject agrees that inequality is increasing, and growing numbers of Americans are troubled by the trend. The question is what can be done about it." + see Robert Reich docu - inequality for all.